


One's Place In The World

by DictionaryWrites



Series: Marauders' Era Fic [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bigotry & Prejudice, Bullying, Canon Compliant, Class Differences, Death Eaters, Fear, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, POV Severus Snape, Psychological Trauma, References to Depression, Werewolves, Young Severus Snape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-18 07:19:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16990512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: Set in the aftermath ofthe Incident.Severus Snape recognises his place in the world.





	One's Place In The World

Severus clutches tightly at the metal mug between his palms, feeling the heat that radiates from it. Pomfrey is watching him from the foot of the bed, her arms crossed over her chest, and Severus hates how he must look at this moment, his feet planted flat beneath the bed, his knees drawn part of the way up, his chest forward… He can no more prevent himself from rocking slightly than he can prevent the inescapable tremors in his hands, and every time he thinks of it, thinks of those snapping, snarling jaws and those amber eyes, it is all he can do to suppress a flinch.

“You ought drink that, Mr Snape.”

“I will do no such thing,” he whispers, wrinkling his nose just slightly, although he is aware he cannot make use of his usual familiarity with the infirmary, nor with Madam Pomfrey herself: his face remains frozen in every other respect, and he feels as if he might be sick. “It’s far too sweet.” Pomfrey sighs, reaching up and adjusting her habit slightly.

“I might have some dark chocolate in the back of the cupboard.”

“I don’t need it.”

“One moment, Mr Snape,” she says, not heeding him in the slightest, as is her wont, and he lets out a shuddering sigh as he walks away, leaning forward slightly.

Werewolf.

That’s what Lupin is, a werewolf, and he’s always been a werewolf, must have been one from the beginning, and Potter… They all— What fun it must have been for them. What fun it must have been, that he might have his throat torn out by a _beast_ , and this is so much worse than the incident by the lake, or when Pettigrew tripped him off a stairwell and Black only just caught him before he fell a few storeys farther, or when they sabotaged a colouring draught so that it burned acid right through his boots. This, this is…

Attempted murder. Black didn’t want to just torture him for the fun of anyone else, or because he thought it was fun – he wanted Severus _dead_. How many times has Severus imagined killing one of them in some dreadful way, and never imagined the desire might be mutual, that it might not be some passing _fancy_ for them? That they might truly wish to do it?

And with werewolf as weapon…

Stupid of him.

Stupid to think Potter and Black and the _lot_ of him might be half so noble as they claim, as anyone thinks of them. But not anymore. No, no longer – this cannot be ignored, cannot merely be brushed aside, that Lupin was a _werewolf_ all this time, and that the four of them knew, all of them, knew…

Surely, they’ll be expelled now.

No more catching him in the hallways, or grabbing hold of him in the stairway, no more being too slow to draw his wand and defend himself, no more having to calculate which of them he might be able to take out first, that he have a better chance with the others, no more of it, no more…

No more.

He exhales hard, staring down at the swirling mix of milk and chocolate in his mug, and he hates the way his body _shakes_ , the way he quivers, can’t help from shivering, like he’s freezing cold.

“Mr Snape,” says a voice from the doorway, and Severus glances at its source, then turns his head away.

“I don’t want you here,” he says sharply. “Leave me be. I called for Lucius Malfoy, didn’t I? I want him contacted.” His voice is not commanding, like he wishes it could be: it’s terse and it cracks in places, shows exactly how emotional he is.

“Lucius Malfoy is not your guardian, Mr Snape,” Dumbledore says, his robes dragging on the floor as he walks slowly across the infirmary floor, and Severus scoffs, curling his lip.

“Much as you may dislike it, Professor Dumbledore, I am a legal adult. I have the right to request whoever I should _like_ as a contact in an emergency, and I would like you to contact Mr Malfoy directly. You no longer have the power to send me back to that ugly town, and to those ugly people.”

 _Those people, Mr Snape,_ Dumbledore had once said to him in a tone he probably thought paternal, _are your parents. They love you_. Severus had laughed, and laughed, and laughed, and Dumbledore had forced him to go back to them anyway.

“What emergency?” Dumbledore asks in his faux-reasonable tone, spreading his wizened hands, and Severus acts without thinking: the mug and the resulting spray of hot chocolate freeze upon the air with nary a word from the old man, and Severus watches powerlessly as the cocoa delicately pours itself back into the mug, which then sets itself down upon the bedside table. Severus looks down at his hands, which won’t stop trembling. “I see no emergency.”

“You know, Professor Dumbledore,” Severus whispers, feeling the thickness in his voice, the tremor in his throat as he does his best not to cry, because it is not befitting a young man of poise to cry, and because he cannot bear the humiliation even now, “I do not think there is a wizard in the world that I respect less than you. You feign your care so absolutely, and me and every one of my house mates might be slaughtered en masse tomorrow morning, and you wouldn’t care a whit. You disgust me.” Across the room, Severus sees Pomfrey with her hand over her mouth, but he doesn’t feel any guilt for what he has just said, for the thought he has long-since held, and only just voiced.

“Would you leave us for a moment, Poppy?” Dumbledore asks sweetly, and he draws the blind about Severus’ bed, sitting down on a chair. His expression does not change, does not show anything but elderly warmth and a twinkling eye, and Severus feels like he might vomit. “I am sorry you feel that way, Severus. I can call you Severus, I hope?”

“Headmaster, you may call me Severus in Hell.” Lucius had been right, in his focus upon Severus’ elocution this past summer, in encouraging him to measure his words more carefully, in encouraging him to lose his accent somewhat and take on something more clipped, more controlled. It is as if he can feel the very _blade_ upon his newly sharpened tongue, cutting sharply through the air… And yet, well he knows, Dumbledore has skin as steel. He does not care: he will not flinch away from aught that Severus says to him. “Did you know?”

“Know what, my boy?” Dumbledore asks in a low voice, and Severus grips so tightly at the white fabric of the sheets that they tear.

“Don’t,” he says. “Don’t— Don’t do that. I cannot bear it when you do that. At least show some modicum of understanding as to precisely what happened, that your _precious_ Black and Potter tried to murder me, with a werewolf as their weapon!” He is aware that he is shouting, spittle flying embarrassingly from his mouth, and he reaches up to touch his fingers to his lips, all but bowing his head between his legs.

Lucius’ voice echoes in his head: _It is more effective to speak lowly, to force your conversational opponent to strain to hear you, than it is to scream and shout like some common street peddler. Force them to lean in closer, force them to focus entirely upon you: do not cause a scene._

“Did you know, Headmaster, that he was a werewolf?” Severus asks, in a scant whisper, barely breathing the words. Throughout this entire explosion of Severus’ temper, Dumbledore’s expression has remained the same, unmoving, his face— How can he do that? How can he remain so controlled, show so little change in his expression, not even _flinch_?

“Remus is a student first and foremost, Severus,” Dumbledore says, and the laughter that bubbles from Severus’ throat is half-mad, hysterical and sharp in tone, like the yips of some rabid dog.

“For twenty-eight days of the month,” he says, aware that his voice is tremulous and higher in pitch than he means it to me, “oh, Severus, do forgive those three days in which he is a rabid beast, doing his best to tear out your throat. Oh, what matter do nights such as those? What harm is a werewolf? Why, he can only rip you to pieces!”

“Severus,” Dumbledore says reproachfully, as if he is saying something unreasonable, and Severus lets out a sharp, bitten-back noise, pressing the back of his head back against the pillows.

“Why are you like this?” Severus asks, desperately. “Why are you so determined to act like I _deserve_ this? They torture me, they humiliate me, now they try to kill me, and every time, you just _brush it off_ —”

“I’m sure Mr Black was wrong in what he did, Severus, but it was merely horseplay,” Dumbledore says, and Severus feels his own speech uselessly putter off, losing the energy to force his tongue to move. “And he will be punished most severely – there is, as yet, a month left to the term, and he will be in detention every evening, and every Saturday—”

“Oh, detention, as we punish every would-be murderer,” Severus mutters. “And Potter?” Dumbledore’s expression finally changes, his eyebrows furrowing just slightly.

“Severus, Mr Potter _saved_ you. It was he who followed you into the Whomping Willow’s pathway – through which you ought not have travelled in the first place, I might remind you – and drew you back.”

“And you think this was some great act of heroism on his part?” Severus demands. “Are you mad? He only wished to do the bare minimum, that I not be able to actually send them to Azkaban, if that rabid monster had _bitten_ me!” The realisation of what might have happened hits him like a fast-moving train, and he heaves in a breath, putting one hand through his hair and gripping tightly at a fistful of lank strands, letting the pain ground him, force him to focus. “Potter and Black were in on this together, you mark my words, but it should take some of the spring out of their step when Lupin is expelled from the school.” Dumbledore’s gaze remains steady on Severus’ face, and Severus meets his eyes, does not allow himself to blink, does not allow himself to flinch away from the shining stare of those blue eyes.

“And why would Mr Lupin be expelled?”

“Are you insane? He’s _dangerous!”_ Severus snaps. “He had no cognizance of his humanity, snapping and growling, he would kill anybody he could! I—”

“During full moons, Mr Lupin is within the Shrieking Shack, safe and isolated from any he might harm,” Dumbledore says mildly. “It was only because you followed him there, after hours, without his knowledge, that he was a danger to you.”

“ _No_ ,” Severus says, aware of how ridiculous it sounds, how childish. “No, no, he— No, Black told me how to… He _tricked_ me, I—”

“You followed him, Severus,” Dumbledore repeats, and Severus feels just as powerless as he does when at the other end of Potter’s wand, as when pressed against the wall away from his father as a child. “Had you not been out of the castle after hours, and had you not followed Mr Lupin, no harm could have come to you – you were very lucky Mr Potter chose to—”

“He will be expelled,” Severus snaps. “You cannot… You—” He can feel the urge to lose his temper rising, and he closes his eyes tightly for a moment, concentrating, concentrating. He is the simmer of liquid in a dark cauldron, smooth and unbroken, the heat kept beneath the surface of the water, not bubbling, not spitting, merely— Calm overtakes him, and he opens his eyes once more. Dumbledore’s expression, which had been his usual vague charm, has changed somewhat: there is something scrutinising in the shift of his gaze over Severus’ face, something… _appraising_. “As soon as I tell anybody, whether it be another student or Lucius, or— _No one_ will let this continue. You might appoint a horse as consul, Headmaster, but you are not Caligula, and your power is not absolute, I—”

“Mr Snape,” Dumbledore breaks in, his voice just slightly harder, enough so that Severus feels himself shift back slightly on the mattress. “If you are to break the revelation of Mr Lupin’s lycanthropy, I am afraid it won’t be possible for me to overlook all the rulebreaking of the evening.”

“Then Black will be expelled too,” Severus says. “For his attempted murder.”

“As well as yourself, of course, for being out of bed after hours, as you have been many times before. Mr Snape, I cannot overlook such rulebreaking—”

“You can’t— You can’t do that, you can’t—”

“Can’t I?” Dumbledore asks, and Severus feels his blood run cold. Expulsion. Expulsion, _him_ , expelled, him— “You are aware, I hope, that being of age is not enough to be permitted to retain a wand. You must complete an education from a recognised magical school, and while you might apply to Beauxbatons or Scoil Eala Dubh, you would need to prove to them that you would be a good student. And, of course, be able to pay for your overseas transport. But I am sure, Severus, that Mr Malfoy would not shy away from further charity in your case, and be so kind as to—”

“ _Shut up,”_ Severus hisses, and once more he grips tightly at the sheet, drawing in a ragged breath. Charity. _Charity_. It embarrasses him enough, that Lucius tries to buy for him robes or his schoolbooks, fusses over whether he has enough money to buy what he needs, and Severus has no doubt that he _would_ do his best to pay for such fees, but he can’t, he can’t… His wand snapped. Doomed to be a Muggle. Worse than a mere Half-blood wizard, worse than a poor boy, but like _Hagrid_ , like…

“I shall call for Mr Malfoy directly, then,” Dumbledore says in his saccharinely sweet voice, and Severus feels as if he might scream from the rooftops. “As you asked for him to—”

“No,” Severus says sharply, and he can feel his lips quivering, feel his voice cracking in the middle again, feels his eyes _burning_. “Don’t call him. As you— As you said. No… no emergency.”

“Are you sure, Severus?” Dumbledore asks, warmly.

“I hope you die in pain, Headmaster,” Severus mutters, feeling the sting in his eyes, and not looking at him, _refusing_ to look at him. One more year. One more year, of Potter and Black, of Lupin and Pettigrew, of all their obscenities, of the headmaster’s overbearing, of a school full of people that hate him, and despise him, and couldn’t care the slightest if a werewolf _did_ rip out his throat. “I hope I’m there to see it.”

Dumbledore’s expression changes the slightest bit, his eyes hardening, his lips twisting: he looks at Severus with _disgust_ on his face, and Severus relishes it, because he couldn’t bear for a man like Albus Dumbledore to look at him with anything more. His ancient throat shifts, his Adam’s apple shifting beneath the wrinkled skin.

“Well,” Dumbledore says, and he stands up, pushing the curtain back. Severus turns to lie on his side, breathing slowly and evenly where he lies on his side, his knees curled up toward his chest.

“You’re as bad as they are, you know,” Severus says, only because he knows this will probably upset him, a comparison to the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters, even if he doesn’t show it: he hears Dumbledore’s footsteps stop short on the infirmary’s tiled ground. “In fact, I would say that you’re worse. They’re honest about what they are, at least: they don’t wrap it up in audacious robes and faux-kindly words.” Dumbledore does not reply. For a long moment, he is quiet, completely still, and then Severus hears him walk away.

He waits until his footsteps have travelled to the end of the corridor, and then he drags himself out of the bed, wrenching the curtain closed once more and beginning to strip off the hospital wing pyjamas and pull on his robes instead. They’re too short for him, too tight, and they’re worn in places, but he’ll have work in the summer at an apothecary in Aberystwyth, next to the Knight Bus Station, and he’ll be able to earn some money, _proper_ money, not mere pocket change from selling acne draughts and explosives to the other Slytherins, or taking a few sickles to tutor an O.W.L. students in Potions or in Defence.

“Mr Snape,” Pomfrey says, when he pushes the curtains back and begins to pull on his boots. “Mr Snape, you’re still shaken, I really don’t think—”

“I do not require you to coddle me, Madam Pomfrey, the scrape on my ankle is quite healed, my Stupefaction is behind me,  and the shock has passed,” Severus says in a hard voice, lacing his boots with a wordless tap of his wand to each toe. “I shall be with you on Friday to help you with your blood-replenishing potions and the bruise and burn salves, although if you like, I can bring my own cauldron and do the Pepper-Up potions at the same time.”

“Mr Snape,” she says again, and when she touches his arm, he stiffens, but he doesn’t flinch away. She looks up at him, and he reads in her expression sadness, and _pity_ , but no surprise. She knew as well, then. All the staff knew, perhaps: is that why so many of them so readily turn a blind eye to Potter and Black, to Lupin and Pettigrew? His life is already so difficult, as a _lycanthrope_ , oh, let him do as he pleases to whomever he likes, especially as two of his friends are so posh and so handsome—

“Please remove your hand from my arm,” Severus says, his voice scarce more than a whisper. He can’t really bear to put more strength into his voice, not right now. He feels like throwing himself from the Astronomy Tower – or throwing Dumbledore. “I shall be with you on Friday to—”

“Yes, I heard you,” Pomfrey says defeatedly, and she retracts her hand.

Taking up his satchel, he walks at speed out of the hospital wing. He will go downstairs to the Common Room, and he shall lock himself in his dormitory, and he shall—

When Severus sees the tall and lanky form of Remus Lupin in the corridor before him, looking tired and worse-for-wear, his wand is in hand within the instant, and the two of them stand across from each other, staring. Lupin’s gaze is on Severus’ face, and all Severus can feel is the sudden pound of his heart in his veins, hear it in his ears, can see the hyperbolic shake of his wand in his hand.

“Wait, wait,” Lupin says, putting up his hands. There are so many little scars on his hands, just like there are on his face, on his neck – are they from when he was bitten, Severus wonders? Or did he do them to himself? “Calm down, I’m not here to hurt you, I wanted to see if you were alright. I’m so sorry, I had no idea what Sirius had done, and—”

“You’re a marvellous actor, Lupin,” Severus says, cutting through the bollocks Lupin is spitting out at him – he wears the mask so well, of a concerned Gryffindor, _overcome_ with guilt, his expression so full of shame. His hand is trembling so much he isn’t sure he could perform an adequate spell to defend himself, he isn’t sure, he isn’t sure. “Let me past.”

“Severus,” Lupin says softly, and he takes a step forward: Severus shakes so hard he drops his wand, and immediately he steps back against the wall, heaving in desperate, gasping breaths and pressing his body right back against the stone, unable to stop how weak his knees are.

“Don’t,” Severus snaps out, and he feels it replay viscerally in his head, again and again: the snapping jaws, the glowing amber eyes, the rip of black claws through a moonlit night, the growling, the lather of spittle at rabid jaws. It all hits him at once, a sensory overload of memory alone, and through it all, the sensation that he was about to die, that he was seeing what would kill him.

“Severus,” Lupin says again, reaching out, and Severus can’t help the desperate _whimper_ that rips out of his throat as he wrenches himself back from Lupin’s grasp.

“Don’t!” he hisses, his chest heaving. “Don’t you touch me, Lupin, don’t you _dare_. Don’t you ever.” Lupin, shocked and apparently upset, takes a few stumbling steps back from him, his mouth open, his eyes focused on Severus.

“You don’t need to be frightened of me,” Lupin says. “I just wanted to apolog—"

Severus snatches up his wand from the ground, and his feet pound on the floor as he sprints from the infirmary and to the stairwells, and he nearly trips on the empty stair once he makes his way midway down, but only just manages to save himself from hitting the ground hard.

 **~** **☾ ϟ** **☽ ~**

When he finally gets down to the Common Room, his chest is aching, sweat soaking his underclothes, but he knows that he’s safe, here. None of them can get to him here, and none of the other Slytherins would do anything to harm him – even were intrahouse squabbles not held in the lowest regard in Slytherin house, no one would dare attack Severus _particularly_.

It’s not worth the response they might earn.

“Geralt, Rickard,” Severus says, and Geralt Wilkes and Rickard Mulciber glance up from their game of chess at him. The two of them—

Lucius had disapproved, when Severus had asked his council. Lucius had disapproved of his joining the likes of Wilkes and the other Death Eaters, of gaining a Dark Mark or not, but… This will only keep happening, he supposes. Dumbledore would rather protect rabid animals than Severus, will let Black kill anybody he likes before he gives him more than a glancing slap on the wrist, and Potter—

Severus isn’t like them.

He will never be like them.

There is no sense in pretending any longer, that he can be anything more.

“You’ve given thought to my offer,” Wilkes says astutely, “of a recommendation.” Wilkes’ father is a Death Eater too, that much is true, but _Wilkes_ has a Mark himself, is the only one at Hogwarts to have one, and when he and Mulciber had taken Severus aside, Severus had been hypnotised by it, taken aback by the serpentine shift of the magical tattoo upon the flesh, the way it shifted and hissed at the slightest touch. It had been… It had been so beautiful, and such a show of _power_ , that he had been chosen by the Dark Lord to be a member of his Inner Circle.

“Yes,” Severus says. “I should be most grateful, were you to put my name forward.”

“My thanks,” Severus says. “For the opportunity.”

“You were reticent before,” Mulciber says: unlike Severus, he has a way of making _his_ accent seem charming and friendly. It doesn’t sound like _he_ just has notions above his station when he says words like “reticent” in his natural manner, and Birmingham isn’t much more impressive, in Severus’ mind, than Cokeworth. “What made you change your mind?”

“Merely a recognition, I feel, of my place in the world… There is no sense in denying the path laid out before me,” Severus says quietly.

“Good lad,” Wilkes murmurs, and one of his broad hands pats the side of Severus’ rib cage, as it cannot quite reach his shoulder: it makes Severus’ skin thrill with something entirely _unlike_ anxiety, and he delicately inclines his head.

“My thanks again,” he says politely, and he retires to his room.

Delicately, he shuts the door, removing his cloak and setting it neatly upon the hook; his satchel is neatly laid on top of his trunk. Thadeus Avery is nowhere to be seen – but then, this is a Thursday evening, and he will be practising with the Gobstones club, and it makes sense that Severus should be on his own. He had been in the hospital wing practically all day, out of it because Potter had had to Stupefy him to keep him from struggling once he’d pulled Severus out onto the grounds, and had put too much power into the spell. Removing his boots and setting them neatly beside the trunk, he crawls onto the bed, flicking his wand to draw the curtains closed, and then casting a silencing charm, and a muffling charm besides.

Setting his wand on the mattress, he reaches for his pillow, buries his face in it, and screams his throat raw.

He wakes up, neck sore, disoriented and confused, only when Avery draws the curtain open some few minutes before dinner, and asks wryly if he’s joining them for the meal.

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up [on Dreamwidth](https://dictionarywrites.dreamwidth.org/2287.html). Requests always open. I also run a [Snape-centric comm](https://snapecomm.dreamwidth.org/)!


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